The system of the present invention provides means for planning satellite communications (SATCOM) among equipment located at one or more specific geographic locations, or along a route of locations. Specifically, the system of the present invention provides a means for selecting SATCOM transmission and reception equipment and locations, signal frequency and message bits, satellites, and time periods, to allow for effective communications, notwithstanding degrading interference sources, including natural and man-made phenomenology.
When commercial and military users of SATCOM equipment use SATCOM designed radios, antennas and associated satellites there is a need to better understand and evaluate the quality of communications pertaining to those equipment choices or pairings and the impacts that natural and man-made phenomenology's effects have on the SATCOM system and overarching communications architecture. Natural phenomenology like ionospheric scintillation, precipitation, and clouds, plus man-made phenomenologies like satellite communication jammers (including noise jammers, frequency hopping jammers and non-coherent Continuous Wave (CW) or tone jamming, multiple tone jamming, and in-band, band-limited full and partial band jammers) need to be differentiated by behavior characteristics and performance effects on a SATCOM frequency. Currently there are no systems available that provide commercial and military users the ability to assess the quality of communications pertaining to SATCOM equipment choices and pairings, and various degrading phenomenology effects, for multiple communication entities (e.g., airplanes, ships, stationary or moving units). By means of the present invention the user may evaluate the effects of phenomenology, for example, jamming or ionospheric scintillation, on communication among identified equipment in terms of bit error rate (BER) or report error rate (RER), or both.
Military and scientific research has shown that geosynchronous located SATCOM satellites transmitting and receiving either voice or data are highly susceptible to interference or denial due to the aforementioned phenomenologies. The present invention relates to a system that allows a user to select one or more entities, including radio and antenna equipment types, current locations or one or more routes during an operation of interest, and one or more SATCOM satellite(s) for their communications. The system of the present invention will identify the overall effect on performance of this integrated communication construct, including any areas or times in which any segment of the communications network of a scenario has degraded performance. The user can also select one or more degrading interference sources (e.g. jamming, ionospheric scintillation, clouds or rain) and assess the potential impact on performance based on different levels of interference. As an example, when assessing the impact of ionospheric scintillation on communications, using ultra high frequency (UHF) satellite communication equipment (radio, antenna and satellite specifications) data and based on the entities' geographic locations, the software will choose the closest near-real time ionospheric scintillation data source or sources and generate a predictive quality assessment of the communication link. This predictive assessment is a tailored result showing the effects ionospheric scintillation may have on the communication signals, based partially upon the intended signal frequency and message bits. If the assessment determines the communication link is weak or ineffective the application provides the user the ability to select alternative actions, e.g. other radio and antenna equipment pairing and/or other satellite options or access times.
The system of the present invention can be updated and modified as the satellite communication community and users improve existing equipment, develop new equipment and functionality, and as additional man-made and natural phenomena characteristics that interfere with satellite communications are defined.